


Breaking Things Into Pieces

by SandrC



Series: Eldritch-tober 2020 [10]
Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, i just think he's neat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26945098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: Mortals are little walking contradictions. Or perhaps Scam is just selfish and awful by nature.
Series: Eldritch-tober 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950820
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Breaking Things Into Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 10: watching
> 
> I like Scam and I like the whole Likely family. More than that, I like exploring human nature through the eyes of an inhuman being. It's why I like fae and eldritch horrors and so on. It's a fun way to talk about my own emotional processing things and the unspoken social rules I tend to miss out on.
> 
> I tried to keep the darker things in this one a little more light than where i could have taken it because i wanted to have fun and those subjects ain't fun.

People are fun. They're unpredictable and routine and selfish and selfless and _wholly contradictory_ in _every_ aspect of their short lives.

People watching is Scam's favorite hobby.

(Never mind that it is inherently _useful_ in pulling accurate scams. It's also just something they find is a fun way to pass the time between changing faces. Just...watching people be _people_. Amusing.)

The washerwoman—her name is Emily, her wife's name is Sarah, they take care of several orphans who live on the street, though they're unable to officially adopt them for financial and tax reasons—quietly cleans her lord's things and doesn't ever tell him that his wife is having an affair. Nor does she tell her lady that he is having an affair as well. Instead she keeps it close to her chest, a small secret just for herself. And, should the lord or lady try and hurt them in _any_ way, she has this knife in her repertoire, among other things they would rather the general populace not know, as a defense.

A guard—Tommy, twenty five, he says he's halfling but he's just a _very short human_ —takes an extra long lunch break because he is busy feeding the cats in the alleyway. Cats that follow him home, knowing he's a friend. Cats that _later_ become spellbound to his neighbor, the local necromancer, as a way to spy on everyone. The necromancer pays Tommy more than he makes as a guard for the cats and as hush money. If the necromancer was caught, they would bind them in anti magic shackles and set them ablaze. Then they would hang _Tommy_ for collusion.

The stableboy has been stealing from saddlebags to run away and become a minstrel. _His sister_ found his stash and has been taking coppers off the top to buy her lover's affection. _His mother_ saw his sister stealing from him and takes _another_ tithe of silver to enable her alcoholism. _His father_ saw his mother drinking and coerced the location of his funds out of her; he takes whole _gold_ pieces. The stableboy will never have enough to leave and he doesn't know _where_ the money goes or _why_ the goalposts keep moving.

_This_ man is cheating on this woman but with a black widow. _That_ elf has been letting monsters in to cause havoc because it's _fun_. The aaracokra who flies around town delivering messages is _actually_ a very clever kenku illusionist. The barkeep spits in the cups and poisons the meals with mild emetics. The innkeeper's husband has been dead for _decades_ and his reanimated corpse still cleans the outhouse on the innkeeper's behest. The folks that supply the town with vegetables have been upcharging and giving them broken produce.

(Scam is the man's wife, taking her dowry back as prize for infidelity _before_ he is devoured. Scam is the elf's neighbor and blackmails him into paying him off for silence. Scam is a passing wizard with truesight who _gently coerces_ the kenku to pay a handsome sum for a glass pendant they said was a ward against truesight _; it isn't_. Scam gets "sick" from the barkeep's emetic and _demands_ recompense as they are a famous food minstrel. Scam is a cleric that Turns the innkeeper's undead husband and, citing the tenants of Lathander, accepts money to look the other way, "out of kindness for their business". Scam is a merchant who sells cheaper vegetables to the city and then disappears, leaving them hungry and without suppliers.)

But for _all_ the easily understood _ugly_ parts of people, there are equally _good_ things there that are _so interesting_ when Scam thinks about them.

The king is a child and his advisors are _trying_ to raise him to be a kind and courteous ruler. The constable's son is _trying_ to be a better person than his father, a corrupt and aggressive enforcer of a broken law system. The head of the temple to Selûne is childless but every person that seeks amnesty finds it inside the hallowed walls of her place of worship as their child in spirit. A baker bakes extra loaves for the urchins that swipe them, not knowing they are _gifts_ , to feed themselves _and_ their fellow homeless youths.

( _Why_ do the advisors not just push _their own_ agenda and control the kingdom through a proxy? _Why_ does the constable's son not just _accept_ the status quo and live in that privilege? _Why_ does the head of the temple let so many people in when they could _take advantage_ of this weakness? _Why_ does the baker not charge them in labor or money or, _better yet_ , turn them in as thieves to the guard and get a reward?)

Selfless actions are unusual and interesting and they make Scam smile because there is no greater scam than making people think you care.

Still, it's a foreign concept for them, so they watch and they _learn_ so that _one_ day they can _maybe_ be convincing enough to pull off the greatest scam. _Maybe_ one day someone will _actually_ care about them, and they'll simply _cease to exist_ and that hole will bother and frustrate that person who was foolish enough to become attached to something as ephemeral as themself.

_Yes_ , people certainly are contradictory little creatures. And they're so, _so_ fragile.


End file.
